4830 - 4850 CF hybrid -?????

it should down clock, though i have to ask, why the 8GB of memory

Can anyone give me more information?

As far as I know you can only pair identical cards in crossfire. If you really want to crossfire you could get another 4830, it will give you a decent boost at the cost of additional power & heat. It might be worth saving for a more powerful single slot card but if you have a sufficient power supply and airflow in your case and you want more performance now, grab another 4830.

edit: Correction, Radeon cards from the 3000 series can be mixed in crossfire, It seems you can do it with the 4000 series too but I can't find much on it.

You can crossfire any similar card (eg. 4800 series with another 4800).

The cards will use as much RAM as the lowest of the pair.

However, the cards will not down clock to the slowest of the pair.

The cards will run asynchronously, though this mode isnt very efficient. Based on numbers I have seen around the performance of mixed crossfire is only slightly better than the performance of twin crossfire with two of the slowest card.

However, in teh 3800 series things were a bit different. a 3870 + 3850 crossfire woudl fit nicely in performacne between a 3870x2 and 3850x2. This is not the case, for whatever reason, in any data I have seen with the 4800 series. Far as cost effectiveness goes it is not really worth corssfiring anything but identical cards and the improvements of the faster card are minimal.

The price difference between 4830 and 4850 is only $10 bucks!
Ill think about what you guys have said.. cheers

I found a mad CF chart here

http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/art/gallery/59205.img